Transparency Institute Guyana Inc (TIGI) today hammered the police over two high profile probes involving senior coast guardsman Gary Beaton and a policeman snared in a cocaine extortion case.
The TIGI press release follows:
The Rule of Law which underpins the Guyana Constitution requires that everyone be treated equally before the law. This means that everyone must have the same rights, whether of property ownership, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement etc. It also means that everyone has the same obligations and duties to comply with the general laws of the country and to the enforcement and judicial process.
Against this background, Transparency Institute Guyana Inc. (TIGI) is disturbed by the preferential treatment meted out to two senior members of the country’s disciplinary forces. Such preferential treatment is a negation of the rule of law and therefore violates the Constitution. We refer to the case of Terrence Brown, Assistant Superintendent in the Guyana Police Force and Mr. Gary Beaton of the Guyana Defence Force.
According to reports, Mr. Brown was the Officer in charge of the Whim Police Station when a vehicle carrying cocaine was interdicted by three Police ranks and taken to the Whim Police Station where it is alleged that Mr. Brown was in charge. The vehicle was released after $6 M was paid to the Police.
Print media reports stated that four persons, Mr. Brown and three of his subordinates, were charged. The reports are that the three subordinates were brought to the court shackled, through the entrance of the Court Complex and placed in the prisoner’s docks. They were not granted bail and were remanded to Prison.
Contrast this with the treatment of Mr. Brown. He was allowed to enter through the backdoor to the Court, not shackled, and not required to go in the Prisoner’s dock. Mr. Brown was given bail on the spurious ground that if he was not granted bail, he would have been put in the lockups where he would have had communication with the other three.
TIGI finds the explanation for the different treatment quite strange since the Magistrate could have released the three junior ranks and remanded Mr. Brown to prison. That would have been quite logical since the higher the rank the greater the responsibility and it surely would have been less costly to the State to have one person in custody rather than three. Alternatively the Magistrate could have ordered that the persons be placed at different stations. It is a denial of the rule of law where there is one type of justice for a senior police officer and another for junior ranks.
The other matter involves Mr. Gary Beaton, the Head of the Coast Guard of the Guyana Defence Force. It has been reported in the media that Mr. Beaton is the spouse of former Public Service Minister, Dr. Jennifer Westford. Dr. Westford has been investigated, charged and brought before the courts for unlawfully selling Government vehicles to a number of individuals, including Mr Beaton who can hardly be described as an innocent third party.
To any rational person, this is a clear case of a conspiracy to engage in theft of Government property. The spousal relationship between Dr. Westford and Mr. Beaton is a matter of public knowledge and could hardly have escaped the attention of the investigating authorities. Instead, the Minister of State commended Mr. Beaton “for doing his job well”! While TIGI does not believe that this statement by a high political person was intended as a suggestion that Mr. Beaton should not be charged, the fact that he has not been charged causes our organisation considerable discomfort.
Commendably, this Government campaigned on a platform of the rule of law. The failure of the Police to investigate and charge Mr. Beaton and the preferential treatment accorded to Assistant Superintendent Terrence Brown, undermine that commitment.
